Prologue

Daniel looked over the paperwork again. Caleb Anderson was making too many waves for him to ignore. He was going to have to go and see what the man wanted, and soon, before he took too many more steps into finding him. He had a delicate balance right now and was afraid that someone other than him would get hurt. He didn't want it to be Caleb or the other men that he'd claimed as family.

"Danny, what do you know about a house explosion on Dewy Street?" He said that he hadn't heard anything. "House and two victims destroyed. The only thing that they do know for sure is that the neighbors, about three miles away, said they smelled gas. Would they be able to smell it from that far?"

"I suppose so." He put his paperwork back in his drawer and turned to the kid who was supposed to be his assistant. The only thing he'd been able to assist him with was a migraine from hell and annoying the fuck out of him. "Have you sent anyone out there yet? To see if it's true or not?"

"I should do that, huh?" Daniel didn't bother telling him that he should have sent someone the moment he heard the rumor. "I'll send out a crew."

"You do that, moron." As he was picking up his paperwork again, putting all his things into his briefcase, Daniel was sort of sad that this was going to be his last day. Doing undercover work for the Bureau was fun most of the time, but he'd learned a great deal about small-town news organizations by being here for the last four months.

Sending off his report, he was putting his things in his car when he saw the firetruck race by him. Must have been true, he thought as it was headed toward the little street that had been mentioned. Pulling out into the little bit of traffic, he was nearly into the street when a full-sized white van pulled in front of him. Putting his hand on his weapon, he waited to see what was going on.

"Doctor Watson, I presume." The man laughed, and Daniel rolled his eyes. He said that he'd been wanting to say that for months. "I have a male in here that is in need of your help."

"What sort of help?" He was getting into the van's back doors when someone got out on the other side and got into his car. A medical team of two was in the van with the man, and he could see that he'd been shot. "Do we have a place to work from?"

"Yeah, we're headed there now. Hang on." He did. Knowing this particular driver as being a full-on idiot, he watched as the man's blood pressure was being taken. Then, when they were stopping at what he assumed was a stop light, he had a chance to look at the wound and assess it. "Four minutes."

In less time than that, he was cutting the man open and removing the bullet. While he was being stitched up by the med team, he gave the man something for infection and pain after ascertaining that he'd not been provided either in the few minutes that he'd been in the van. Christ, this kid must be important if—

"Cassie? Cassie? Christ, she's bleeding too." They were in front of the house when she was scooped up and taken inside. The man would be taken care of as well, but he needed to see what he could do for the young woman. The bullet had entered her left shoulder and was still in there. Whoever had shot this couple, they had missed the spot twice. Hell was going to be paid. He'd bet anything.

It took him nearly an hour to get the woman to the point where he didn't think she was going to die. It had been touch and go there for a little bit. She had coded twice. Opening her chest up in a strange house without any precautions was the only thing he could do, as it turned out. The bullet had nicked her aortic artery, and she was bleeding internally. Lucky for her and him, the house had the equipment to keep her alive.

Sitting next to the two people, he didn't bother asking who they were. If they had wanted him to know, they would have told him by now. Instead, he looked over the paperwork that he'd brought with him when he'd gotten into the van.

"Did you find any misdealings there?" His boss, FBI Director Charles Dow, sat down next to him in another chair. "Not that I don't think it could happen, but the town is just too…I don't know, Disney-like for there to be foul play there."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you. But no, I didn't find that any of the allegations were true. The newspaper is above reproach, and they have a good community thing going on, too. It's just like you said, very Disney-like." Daniel got up and checked on the female. "I don't know that you're going to tell me anything, but these two were from there, right? Her clothing had a real-estate name on them, and he was dressed like you. What gives, if I can ask?"

"She is Cassie, Cassandra Blake. FBI. You might have heard about her when her husband was murdered right in front of her. Then the man is her brother, Bradley Benson. He does work for us, too." He asked if she was the one who had had the nervous breakdown. "That's her. She's been working for us under the guise of video surveillance for the realtor by the name of Alder. I'm not sure how much either of them knows about what happened today, but they were leaving a job when someone opened fire on the two of them. As you were able to figure out, she'd not known that she'd been shot until she was in the van. They're tight, the two of them."

"Okay, that explains who they are, but what are they? I'm assuming since everything moved so quickly that they're important in some way." He only nodded. "Okay, closed-mouthed. I'm all right with that. It was my last day at the newspaper office anyway. Can you at least tell me where I'm headed next?"

"Yes. You're not going to like it." He looked at the people in the beds and then back at his boss. "I need someone to watch over them until they're healed enough to take care of themselves. And I have the perfect spot for you to do it. You get to meet up with your long-lost family, too."

"Caleb Anderson." Charles nodded. "Why him? I mean, there has to be a better place than a family member's home? Don't you have any safe houses that I could stay at with them? I mean, I'm not even sure that the two of us are related."

"You are. You're his half-brother." He took the paperwork that was being held out to him. "You remember his mother, don't you? Abigail Anderson?"

"Yes." He did, too. Abby had been a good friend of his when— "She's his mother? Caleb is related to Abby Anderson? Christ, now I know why he's like this, not leaving shit alone when he couldn't find me. He's just like her."

"Thank you." The large man came into the room with him. There was no mistaking that they were related. When Caleb sat down, he looked at Charles. "He called me early last week when he found out that I've been looking for you. I had to pull a few strings to even get as much information that I had on you to come through. Then, about two hours ago, he called me again and told me that not only were you in town but that you needed me to help you. Welcome to the family, Daniel. We've all been waiting for you."

"Do you have any idea what we're doing here? Why I've been trying to avoid you? I'm an undercover FBI agent who is about as close to death as anyone gets on a daily basis and who works with bad people. I could very well get your entire family killed." Caleb told him that they were his family, too. "Look, this is a bad idea. I don't know these two people here, but they've been targeted to be killed, and the kind of people that do that sort of shit in broad daylight won't give a shit if you have six or six hundred people protecting you. They'll plow through you like you're nothing." Charles got up and left them there. It was then that he looked at his half-brother when he laughed.

"We have help." Daniel got up and started to pace. "My mother, she knew about you. I found some information about you that I didn't with the rest of them. Just notes on things. How you became so good at your job. She said that you have an ability that no one knows about."

Daniel stopped pacing and turned to look at the other man. Then he looked around to see if anyone had heard. While he knew that the room was being recorded, it wouldn't get shit while he was there. Not any mikes, cameras, or cell phones would work. It's why he didn't carry one. Nor wear a watch.

"What did she tell you? I've not seen her in a long time. How is she doing?" Caleb told him that she had passed away seven months ago from cancer. "Oh, I'm so sorry. She was a brilliant woman and one that I loved more than my own mother at times. I didn't know. I had no way of—You have my deepest condolences, Caleb. She was a wonderful woman."

"She was. And she made me promise that I'd find all my brothers. You were the last one." Caleb laughed. "You'd not believe the shit that we've gone through with each of them. Sebastian was the last to join us before you had a mobster after him. Whatever we need to do, Daniel, to keep you safe, we're going to get through it. I promise."

He didn't bother telling him that it wasn't good to make promises like that when he didn't know what was going on. It was like the brother and sister that he was watching over now. Who knew what sort of shit was going to come about with having them around too.

"It's going to be hell. I hope you understand that." Caleb said that he'd been told it was going to be the worst yet. "That's about as accurate as it can get. I've been in and out of places that would make your hair turn white, as the saying goes."

They talked for the next hour. Not on any kind of plan to get them to his home. Not about what might be coming after the two on the beds with all sorts of shit hooked up to them. Caleb told him about his wife and brothers. The children and what they were up to. How his grandparents were helping out with projects around town that he might have heard of.

Daniel was impressed. All the good works that were going on around town were something that Caleb had a hand in. He'd not even realized that they were in the same town until today. All he'd had to do was walk down the street from the building he was working in and find his brother. Christ, talk about a small world. They had been together for the last few months, and neither of them knew a thing about the other.

When he was given a note, Daniel waited for him to read it before he let his tension go. Caleb looked at him, smiling when he handed him the note.

"Tabby is my wife. You'll learn not to mess with her. Or not. She'll love you anyway. But she's sort of firm about things. Well, you'll figure it out. She said that the basement has been converted into your lab of sorts and that you should come home with me and the other two." He asked him where he was going to be staying. "With us. Everyone in town knows that I've been looking for you. Most of the people won't even equate you with the man at the newspaper office. You didn't get out much, I'm to understand."

"No. I was working." Caleb stood up. "We're going now? To your home? I mean, this is a huge undertaking. How will you get the young couple there into your home?"

"It'll be a piece of cake." He wished he had the confidence that Caleb had. He'd never had an easy move in all his life and was sure that this wasn't going to be any different. Going out to the garage, he started laughing when he saw the setup that was going on. Yes, he thought, it was going to be a piece of cake with this man in charge.

~*~

"Mister, I'm not coming down outta this tree until you swear to me that that cur dog is out of sight. He already done did bite me once. I don't like donating my blood to nobody, especially not cur dogs." Daniel let himself laugh at the little boy in the tree. "You just go on now, Mr. Sebastian, and I'll be fine and dandy."

"Can I help?" Daniel had yet to meet any of the others but Caleb as his family, so he put out his hand to Sebastian, a man who could be his twin. "I think that we're brothers."

"You don't know that you're brothers? Sheesh, Mister. I got me five sisters, and they make for sure that everyone knows that they're related to me. They're all bigger and older than me, too." The little boy looked at him. "Yeah, I can see that you're his brother, so don't be thinking nobody else is gonna notice it."

"I didn't get to meet him when I came to town yesterday. We all have the same father, but we've not been together before." Luke, he found out the boy's name and said that was nice for them all. "I guess. Where is the cur dog?"

As if he'd summoned the pooch, he came barking at them from around the corner. As soon as Sebastian told him to lay down, it did. Daniel was trying to hold back his laughter when Luke told the other man that he only minded big people, not little kids with teeth holes in his leg.

"He thinks you smell good to him." Luke told him that wasn't helping. "No. I suppose not. I'm not saying that you did anything, but could he have a reason for wanting to chomp on your legs? I mean, he doesn't look to me like a mean dog."

"I had to do it. My momma," Luke looked at Sebastian, then back at him before continuing again. "She's having herself a bad day. Dad, he knocked her around a bit and took all the money in the house again. I'm not asking for money, Mr. Sebastian. I'm just telling this man here, your brother, why the dog hates me. I was feeding him, you see. Putting out the scraps for him to munch on. You don't know what he looked like before I started doing that. All his ribs were fighting to be on the outside of his skin rather than where they're supposed to be. But momma, she got it in her head that we couldn't feed a cur dog—I don't even know what that means—no more on account of dad taking all the food money. Again."

"Is your momma all right?" Luke told him that she was in the hospital with his sisters. "All right. We'll come back to that. This dog, he's usually friendly to you, is he?"

"He is. Sometimes, when it's raining out, I bring him into my room and hide him away. My daddy, he'd have himself a conniption if he were to hear about that part. Woo Eee doggie. I'd be hurting." Daniel was having so much fun that he didn't want to leave, so he said he'd help the little boy and dog out. "The dog don't need much in the way of help, mister. He just needs to not be chomping on the hand that feeds him."

"Do you think perhaps you smell like your dad, and he's smelling him instead of you?" Daniel looked at Sebastian while Luke was thinking things over. "I was looking for Caleb and Tabby. I need to talk to them about something important. Do you know where they might be?"

"I know where Tabby is. She's with the other women out looking for a building to have the school's fair days in. They're just down the street at City Hall getting permits and standards that they're going to need." He asked about Caleb. "He should be with Joey. That's the last place I knew anything about either of them."

A thick jacket hit him on the head, and he looked up at Luke. "That's my daddy's. He said he wanted me to drop it off to be dry-cleaned. I put it on so that I'd not lose it. You think that's all it was, Mister?" He said the only way to find out was to test it on the dog. "I'm not going to be happy if you've been funning with me about this. He already bit me once today."

Once Luke was out of the tree, he could see how badly the boy had been knocked around, too. Telling him to put his hand out to the dog earned him a look, but he had confidence in the plan that he'd laid out for him.

The dog was growling at the back of his throat, but he did inch his way to Luke. Almost as if he would have given up, the dog jumped into the little boy's arms and was trying to lick his face off. The giggling little boy and the happy pup were just what he needed right now.

"Now that he's not going to chomp on you anymore, do you mind if I have a look at your wound? I don't want him to lose you again because you got an infection." Setting the two of them on the sidewalk, he cautiously looked at not just the superficial bite mark but also as many wounds on his arms and legs as he could. "I think we should all pay a visit to the hospital to make sure you're up to date on your shots. We can check on your mom and sisters while we're at it."

"You a doctor or something?" He said he was a doctor. "We sure could use a doctor in my family. Dad comes around with his fists, all ready to do some hurting, and you could patch us up. Momma gets the most beating around. So does Serenity, but she hits him back now so he don't mess with her too much. Momma would too. She used to anyways. But since she's got the cancer, it's hard on her to defend herself." Luke looked up at the two of them. "I don't know what I'm going to do if I lose her. She's the best momma there ever was."

"She sounds like it." They took a hand each, and the three of them, with the dog following right behind, walked down the street. Sebastian said he had parked his car down here when he'd seen Luke up the tree. That was when he saw Caleb. "I have to talk to Caleb for just a minute. Do you think you guys could wait for me to go with you? I'd like to have a couple of tests run while—just give me a few minutes."

He was prepared for the bear hug that he'd gotten every time he came upon Caleb. It was breathtaking, literally, as well as it really did make him feel quite a bit better about things in general. However, he didn't have good news this time, and he almost hated to let him go.

"I heard about it." Nodding, he told him he was so sorry. "I am as well. While they didn't give us any kind of information on the two of them, it's still tragic that they both passed away. The young woman, Cassie, she had lost a lot of blood, you said, and the young man, Bradley, he was hurt pretty badly."

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you know?" He told him that his butler had gone to check on him and had heard him talking to someone about it. "I guess I could have been more discreet about it. I'm sorry that you had to find out that way. While I didn't really hold out much hope for the young woman, as you said, she'd lost a great deal of blood. I did hope for the young man to make it."

"Do you know what happens now?" He said that they'd make arrangements to have their bodies picked up for them. "No. I mean, I'm glad that is going to be taken care of. I meant about their killers. Do you know anything about if they've found them or not?"

"Several factions are taking credit for the deaths, though they don't say who they killed or where, so we're not putting much out there on that. I know that the president has his best men working on finding them. It happened on our soil, and he'll make sure that doesn't happen again. The two of them, brother and sister, from what I've been able to figure out, have lost a great deal in working for the government. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what else comes to us about it. I just don't know."

"Thank you for telling me." He got another hug. "You'll be staying, right? I mean, you just got here, and I'd hate to lose you so soon."

"I'm retired. I mean, I was retired before I came here. It was an easy assignment so that I could get my last fifteen days so that I could have my full retirement." Caleb smiled. "That's not to say that I might not get called in for something on this. Being on the scene when it first happened is about all the help I've been able to give them. But I was first on the scene, and I'm not sure what that will mean for the president."

"I'll have a talk to him." Daniel laughed, but Caleb didn't. He was never sure about this man. He'd never play against him in any game of life or just a board game. He held himself out there like he didn't have a care in the world, but once you got to talking to him, you saw a whole other part of him that he thought very few people did.

Going back to where he'd left Sebastian and Luke, he got into the car with them. As they were headed to the hospital, he thought about being a part of this growing family. He knew about Caleb and the others. Much more than he thought that they did about each other, and he was afraid that someone or something might happen to them. They were, he'd come to discover, just as friendly and nice as he'd read about them.

They pulled into the lot and went inside to the emergency department. There didn't seem to be a lot going on, but there were people waiting in the waiting room. A lot of them, about forty people. Daniel asked to see who was in charge.

"Nobody is." He didn't think that was right but asked again who was in charge of this shift in this department. "Are you deaf as well as stupid? Nobody. Fill out the paperwork over there on that kiosk thing and sit down. We'll get to you when we get to you."

He turned and looked at Sebastian, who looked as shocked as he felt. Going to the kiosk, he spoke quietly to Sebastian while trying to figure out how to handle this. He asked him if Caleb had any pull here.

"Yes. So does his grandparents. Want me—let me reword that. It would be my pleasure to call them and have them come here. The president of the hospital was terminated about a week ago. I don't have any idea what for, but I'm beginning to get a clearer picture now." Luke said he'd been turned away the other day when he'd come to see if his friend had broken his arm. "What happened to him?"

"He got himself an infection from the break, and they had to run him up to a bigger hospital. Sure is a shame, too. His family can't see him that far away." Daniel hadn't heard anything about the hospital around here. Not even working about as close to it as he had. He wanted to think that it was a one-time thing, but it was slowly becoming apparent that this was the norm for here. "You gonna get them in trouble? I hope that they don't know that my mom is in here. They'll take it out on her if they do. Or maybe she'll get better care. They been holding her pain stuff, Sen told me."

Enough was enough. Calling Caleb while Sebastian called Caleb's grandparents, he laughed when he heard that someone was calling in the wives. Just the little bit of time that he'd spent with Tabby, he knew better than to fuck around with her. She was the sweetest little thing, but she had a fire in her that could burn down a house at fifty paces.

Caleb showed up first. No one even blinked an eye when he asked who was in charge. They told him the same thing that they'd said to him. Nobody. This time, however, she sounded out each syllable like it was something she wasn't fond of repeating.

When the grandparents showed up, it was iffy if they were going to be arrested. Mrs. Anderson was well up into the face of the woman behind the check-in counter, and she wasn't backing down, not even when security showed up. A sorrier bunch of men and women he'd ever seen, too.

After two more hours, he found himself sitting in the room of Olivia Branch. When Luke had said that his mother was dying, he hadn't mentioned that it might be as soon as today. It hadn't helped the woman to have been a punching bag for her husband, either. The daughters, five of them, were more protective of their mother and brother than he'd seen national security types protecting something.

"I don't have long, do I, Doctor?" He shook his head, and two of the girls stood up and dragged Luke along with them. "They're all I have in the world, and now I'm going to leave them to their father. Do you know of anyone who can take care of them for me? Just until my sister and Aunt can get here. I called them, but, well, money is tight everywhere. I was saving for them to send them money, but Burt took it all when he wanted to go and celebrate."

"What did he have to celebrate, Mrs. Branch, that was more important than your family having food on the table?" She said that he didn't pass that along to her, then laughed. "Luke takes after you in finding fun in about everything, I think."

"He's a good boy. Burt, he don't like him none because he's smart and corrects him all the time. Luke, he don't show off and talks like he's got not one brain cell in that noodle of his, but he's brilliant. Going to be ten next month and already done with high school. He's afraid his daddy will find out that he's really smart and make him find a job. My poor baby." The older daughter, Sen is what she went by, sat down on the other side of her mom and took her hand. "This one here, too, is brilliant. All of them are but Luke and Sen here, they've been the smartest of them all. Smart enough, too, that she won't marry anybody her daddy brings around because he said so."

"I don't live with them when he's home. I guess I thought that I could do more good than not if I had a job. I do, but it doesn't matter how much I bring to Mom and the others. Dad seems to know and takes it all." She told him that she was twenty-seven. "Though there are times when I feel like I'm twice that."

They talked to each other while Olivia dozed in and out. It really wasn't much longer for her to live. He'd been able to give her morphine to help with the pain, but she was almost too weak to do much more than moan. His heart broke for the little family, and he felt like he needed to do more.

What that would be wasn't anything that he could put his finger on. When Caleb showed up with food and the other kids, he helped Luke get his food loaded up on his plate and sit on the other bed. He ate with them as it had been a long time since breakfast, he told the little boy.

"Momma isn't going to come home this time, is she?" Daniel shook his head. "I didn't think so. She's worn out, isn't she? I don't want her to suffer anymore, but I don't want her to leave me either."

"She'll never leave you, Luke. Your mom will be with you for the rest of your life. She'll be watching over you. And every time you think of doing something you have to think hard on, you just ask yourself, what would my mom think if I did it this way. Or what would she do if she were in this place in my life? Every day, without her being right there beside you, you'll think about her, and she'll be right there guiding you." Luke hugged him, and he held him tightly while he thanked him for that. "You're so very welcome. I do the same with my mom every day, too. It's like she's my little angel right there on my shoulder, guiding me to do the right thing."

Luke held onto him for about twenty minutes before he realized that he'd fallen asleep. After he got him adjusted around so that he could lay him on the other bed, Alex helped him by covering up her brother.

"That's the nicest thing you could have done for him. He's been worried about that for weeks now, knowing that Mom was coming to an end. But you helped him. I can't thank you enough." He said that it had been his pleasure. "Doctor Watson, if you'd like to stay with us tonight here at the hospital, that would be great. Not as a doctor but as a friend. I think of you already as that."

"Yes, I'll stay."